Marketing Happy Hour - Level Up Your Content Strategy in 2024 | Kyle Denhoff of HubSpot

Starting point is 00:00:00 you're listening to the marketing happy hour podcast where we discuss career and industry insights with our peers in marketing we're here to talk about it all like the ups and downs of working in social media how to build authentic relationships in the influencer and pr space managing a nine-to-five and a side hustle at the same time, how to be productive in your life and career without losing your sanity, and more. Ultimately, we're here to build a community with you because we're all trying to navigate the world of marketing together. Are you ready? Grab your favorite drink and join your hosts, Cassie and Erica, for this week's episode.

Starting point is 00:00:57 Hey, Marketing Happy Hour listeners, welcome back. This week, we are so excited to introduce you to Kyle Denhoff, Director of Marketing Media at HubSpot. In this episode, Kyle walks us through his team's approach to YouTube, podcast, and email newsletter content, and how they tailor their channels to the audiences they're trying to reach. He also shares his thoughts on the leadership skills every marketer should adopt and provides encouragement for anyone looking to up-level their content strategies in the next year. Grab your favorite drink and listen in with us. Hi, Kyle. How are you? Hi, Erica. I'm good. How are you doing? I'm doing well. We are so excited to have you on Marketing Happy Hour today. But before we get started, I do have an important question that we ask all of our guests, and that is what is in your glass this afternoon? So I guess when it comes to happy hour, I tend to turn to a small glass of bourbon. Right

Starting point is 00:01:52 now, it's a four grain bourbon from Black Button, which is a small local distillery here in Rochester, New York. So keeping it local. Very, very cool. I actually have something as well that i am going to sip for the first time actually um this team at thomas ashbourne craft spirits just sent over this espresso martini um it's actually made in collaboration with neil patrick harris which is super cool um so i am actually going to take my first sip now while Cassie tells us what's in her glass. That's awesome. Uh, so I actually am trying Ouroboros, uh, olive oil martini for the first time. They did a collab with Graza, which is one of my favorite, favorite brands for olive

Starting point is 00:02:36 oil. And so I've not tried this one yet. So I'm sipping on this one today. So super excited. Uh, well, Kyle, just diving right into this week's episode. We're excited to talk with you about all things HubSpot and just your day to day and what you do. But if you don't mind first, can you kick us off and share with us about your background and how you grew into the director of marketing role that you currently hold? Yeah, yeah. So I'm currently

Starting point is 00:03:03 a director of marketing at HubSpot focused on our media team. And that really, I think at most companies would be a content marketing team, but at HubSpot, we've grown it to be almost its own media division. We have over 50 people, writers, editors, producers. And I ended up here, honestly, kind of on a non-traditional path. I went to school for journalism. I was going to be a multimedia journalist. And so I've always stayed in the content space, but I started my career. I'd tell people I sold out. I started working for an agency right away and writing for brands. So I started an agency for a couple of years. Then I headed over to Xerox and actually

Starting point is 00:03:42 ran global social for them. So I did a lot of social and paid, then went into healthcare for a while and did web strategy and content for patients and physicians, and then landed at HubSpot five years ago. So I've worked in a bunch of different sectors, a bunch of different roles, but always, always focused on digital media and content. And so I've been really lucky at HubSpot to get a lot of opportunities and really enjoying the media team. That's awesome. Well, we know firsthand, we're big fans of HubSpot. So we know the type of content you guys are pumping out on a regular basis. And you guys are just all over the place. You have a presence everywhere. So content is

Starting point is 00:04:20 obviously a very loaded term, right? And you kind of mentioned the vastness of your team and what that looks like for you guys, but what is the team's day-to-day look like and what are the different avenues or categories or channels that you guys are really focusing on right now? Yeah, it's a good question because I think it kind of depends on what we're focusing on as a business, right?

Starting point is 00:04:41 So every program we invest in is meant to help us as a business, right? So every, every program we invest in is meant to help us hit a business objective. So there are certain channels and content plays that help us expand our reach. And those tend to be more news and expert commentary plays. I know there are a lot of folks out there that subscribe to the hustle newsletter. We have a podcast called my first million we do, we have some relationships with other podcasters like Jenna Kutcher and Amy Porterfield for Online Marketing Made Easy and Gold Digger. Those are all partnerships and content that we're building to be able to expand our reach.

Starting point is 00:05:17 But sometimes the business will say to us, we need to increase demand. We need to get some more leads for the sales team. And so we have folks on the team that are focused on more educational content. That's really just helpful how to's and explainers to help people do their job better and ultimately converting them into a lead through some gated content. And the last piece is sometimes we just want people to sign up for HubSpot. And so we're doing a lot of content that shows people how easy it is to use our. And so we're doing a lot of content that shows people how easy it is to use our tools. And we're doing a lot of tutorials on YouTube. So we do have a pretty big

Starting point is 00:05:51 portfolio. And folks are focused on our different properties based on, you know, the the objective they have. So the folks on our team that work on our newsletters that are trying to grow our reach, they're coming up with daily stories, they're curating content from across the internet. They're coming up with a big story that they're going to report on in the hustle the next day. And so their day looks a lot different than the team that's focused on creating product tutorial videos where they're partnering with our product marketing team and saying, what's the next feature that we're going to need to highlight on YouTube. So I don't think anyone's roles look the same day to day, but we are all focused on, can we provide free news, free education, and free product information for our audience just

Starting point is 00:06:36 to help them grow their companies and do better at their jobs? That is awesome. And we're going to get in the nitty gritty of YouTube podcast, you know, newsletter strategy and all of that. But we love to talk about career on Marketing Happy Hour. And we like to chat through leadership skills when we are speaking to someone who leads a team. I'm just curious to hear from you. What do you think makes an effective leader? It's a great question. One thing I like to tell folks, especially folks that are like new managers on my team, ask really thoughtful questions and listen first.

Starting point is 00:07:16 And I think leaders who, you know, the leaders expected to set the mission and vision and the goals and the growth targets and all of these things in regards to like pushing the company forward. But you can't do those things until you talk to your team. And so I think whether you're a new manager or you're someone who is moving companies or teams and you're just stepping into a leadership or management role, I would spend the first two weeks just setting up coffee chats with everyone, talking to them. What's working? What's not working? What ideas have you had that you haven't been able to get out the door? What are some are blockers for you? And so I think the best leaders I've met in business always ask thoughtful questions and listen first. And then they take all that information

Starting point is 00:08:00 and they're able to communicate it back out to the team and say, I heard you. This is what we're going to do as a team this year. And I'm excited to work with you on it. And so there's a lot of different skills, but I think starting with that one is the best path forward for most. Absolutely. I love that. And I'm thinking of those who are listening, who might not be in a leadership position yet, or might not even, you know, be in that realm yet, what are some of the things that they can do aside from just always honing those listening skills that they can put into place now so that they're equipped to be a leader someday, if that's something they desire? Yeah, yeah. As you're growing your career, I also talk to people about leading through influence.

Starting point is 00:08:41 Like, you don't necessarily have to have direct reports. You don't have to have a big budget, but if someone gives you a goal or someone gives you a task, own it, own it, and be able to pull people in to help you do that work. And I think there's a lot of folks that I see earlier in their careers on my team where they take initiative and they say, okay, this is the goal that's been set for me.

Starting point is 00:09:03 I'm gonna figure out how to hit that goal and And I'm going to pull people together to help me do it. And those are the folks that get you so excited because you know, they're going to be leaders in the future. And I think that's what I would tell most folks is just lead through influence, like help other people understand what the goal is you're trying to accomplish, ask them what they're doing day to day and how you can help them and try to connect those dots and get more people supporting you towards your common goals. So I would say anyone who's starting out their career, you can still be a leader. You can still be a leader.

Starting point is 00:09:39 In fact, you're probably expected to be one on certain projects. And so I think don't sit back and be quiet in those meetings, make sure that you ask good questions and then you drive those projects forward. That's so good. I love how you essentially alluded to alignment. I think that's really important just to make each of those team members feel heard and seen. And like, they're a part of this bigger mission, especially in larger teams. Like what you guys have is sometimes team members can feel like they're just a small fish in a big pond and they're just churning out content and doing things on a day to day. But as leaders reminding them that they play a part in a bigger purpose and the goals of

Starting point is 00:10:19 the organization and that you need each member of the team to step up and be a part of that. I think that's a really powerful thing that doesn't even doesn't only help yourself as a leader grow in your leadership skills, but also just helps the team get more done and feel greater purpose there. Yeah, I love that you mentioned greater like it gets people excited, right? Like, OK, we're working on this together. We're a team. We're going to try to actually accomplish something.

Starting point is 00:10:43 And I think if you're able to get yourself in that kind of position earlier in your career, like ask to take on those projects when, when, you know, your manager or boss is saying, I, you know, I'm trying to solve this problem, raise your hand and say, I want to solve it. I'll go solve it. Even though you don't have the team or resources, just raise your hand and then you can bring people around you. And I think people respect that. Yeah, absolutely. Cannot agree more. Well, Kyle, let's kind of dive into the strategy side of things here. I want to talk about YouTube first, which is a platform I know I'm personally very excited about recently. There's a lot of

Starting point is 00:11:19 stuff going on on that platform, both short form and long form. So curious on the HubSpot team, what tactics you guys are utilizing right now and what's getting you excited about the platform too? Yeah, I think when we talk about YouTube strategy, before we talk about tactics, I actually like to talk about like, why YouTube? Like, why are we actually going here? If you look at like, just consumer behavior in general, I think Nielsen, it was last October, I think they were like, they reported that YouTube has higher streaming per month than any other streaming platform in the United States. It passed Netflix for the first time. So first thing is we know our prospects and customers are

Starting point is 00:12:01 there. Then you start to see this rise in TikTok. People want short form video and YouTube release shorts. And now there's a mechanism there to reach people and get them to discover your product. And so I do like to talk about that because I think that's important as like, I'm going to invest in YouTube because I know my customers are there. And I think there's a way for me to make an impact for the business. Then from there, we start to figure out, okay, who are we trying to reach? Like once we know that we want to go on this platform, who are we trying to reach? And if the answer is marketers in these certain markets, then we can say, okay, should we create a channel to reach these people?

Starting point is 00:12:41 And like aligning your channel strategy to your audience, I think is really smart. Start with the audience first. And then from there, you can develop your content plan. So now that I know I'm gonna make a channel for marketers, what the heck do marketers care about, right? I can do some keyword research and develop how-tos and explainers to help people understand

Starting point is 00:13:01 and answer questions they're looking for. I think in the marketing world, things are changing all the time. There's new tools, there's new tech. We could do some news and kind of trends content that may be interesting for folks around just like, how do I stay up to date on the latest trends in marketing? So I think that's how we tend to think about it is like, what's the overall objective? Who's the audience and what content can we make for them? What are we doing today?

Starting point is 00:13:26 Back to your question is we actually have YouTube channels for each of those objectives. So one of our objectives is actually to grow our reach and influence in the business community. And so we have a YouTube channel called The Hustle dedicated to that. And so the content on that channel is economics explainers, news headlines, interviews with business experts, this content that general business folks, operators, enthusiasts, folks who just log in every day are going to be interested in, their unique stories. But then we also have a channel dedicated to the marketers and we give them how to content. We're helping them with keyword research and social media marketing and email nurturing strategies. And then we also have a

Starting point is 00:14:12 channel for people who are prospects, folks who are interested in buying our product. So right now we have those three channels set up and we have teams on those channels that are consistently trying to figure out, okay, what content should I make this week to help my audience? And I think we're consistently trying new things. I love that. And I love that you mentioned trying new things. Are there things that you're testing on each platform or on each channel that you're kind of taking away learnings from and saying, okay, this worked over here on this one where we're talking to this audience

Starting point is 00:14:46 and this over here didn't quite land with the audience that we're trying to speak to over there. Have you had experience with that? Yeah, definitely. Our teams are actively, HubSpot's a very data-driven company. I will say we're data-informed on YouTube because we still want to be creative.

Starting point is 00:15:04 We don't want to force it. But we, I mean, we're data informed on YouTube because we still want to be creative. We don't want to force it. But we I mean, we're looking at viewership, average view duration, demand across all those videos and then making informed decisions off of that. Did our audience like this? Why was the drop off at the 10 second mark? It must have been because our hook was pretty bad. Next time we publish a new video, let's script a really great hook so we can keep them and increase that average view duration. So our team's consistently looking at the performance

Starting point is 00:15:31 of each video and then trying to figure out what could we do better. If the click-through rate's down, can we make better thumbnails? If the average view duration drops, can we have a better hook? If we generate no demand on this video, is it because the offer was pretty bad or like, just was it placed too late? Did we put it on the eight minute mark and nobody made it there? So we're consistently testing and experimenting. I will say the one thing is once, one thing we love to talk about is once we find a format, let's make it a repeatable format. So get things on the site, publish them, see how the audience responds. And then once you find something that works, break down every piece of

Starting point is 00:16:12 it. Okay, that thumbnail worked. What elements were in that thumbnail that made it really good? The hook worked. The lead gen offer worked. Why? And then see if we can document that. And we share that with our production teams. We're like, this is why this video worked next month. Let's try to make three of those videos. So we're consistently sharing those learnings between the teams. And I think our, our producers are really, really open to trying new things and nailing down new formats. Excellent takeaways there. I think people, anybody who's listening can take away some really actionable tips around YouTube there. I want to move in to podcasting and as

Starting point is 00:16:52 podcasters ourselves, we are especially interested to hear your tips around content strategy with podcasts. How do you and your team develop content plans for these podcasts that you are producing? Yeah, this is a debate we have a lot at HubSpot is like, who takes the lead? And like, how do we decide on what content we're going to make? And you don't want to plan too much. If you do too much research and plan too much, then you never really get anything in the market. And you don't know if the audience is going to like it. With our podcast in particular, I think podcasting lends itself more to the conversational tone. I think it falls more in that like news expert commentary bucket, unless you're listening to some of those really, really nicely scripted narrative shows.

Starting point is 00:17:38 But for us, it's really more of like a news expert commentary format. And then from there, our producers and our talent are trying to figure out what do we want to talk about every week that's going to be valuable to our listeners. So on some of our shows, that may be tips and tricks for like how to do something better. On other shows, My First Million, for example, they always do a business breakdown. They bring on someone who started a business, made millions of dollars, and then ask them how they did it. And so I think there's different formats you can test.

Starting point is 00:18:11 The one thing with podcasting that's really interesting is we're always testing new segments. We'll drop in a new segment that we want to try, and we'll see the average listener retention on that episode. Did folks stick around? Did they like that segment? If they did, let's try it again. If they didn't, we'll introduce something new. So I think we test our formats.

Starting point is 00:18:33 And the other thing I'll say that's something folks can take away is once you've published quite a few episodes, you may not get the downloads you want or the streams you want, but evaluate the performance of all those episodes. Get 20 of them out there, 30 of them out there, 50 of them out there, and then look at each episode and say, what was the topic we talked about in that episode? What segments were in that episode? Did we have a guest? Did we not have a guest?

Starting point is 00:19:00 Who was the guest? And almost like tag each episode. And then you can actually just build a report that'll show you, okay, episodes with a guest tend to have higher listenership. So let's, let's try to introduce more guests into our show. When we talk about YouTube strategy or TikTok strategy, our listeners stick around longer. So let's make sure we cover those topics going forward. So that's what I would say to most folks who are starting a podcast or trying to grow their show is consistently just see what's working and introduce new ideas. We have a lot of friends that are interested in starting a podcast in

Starting point is 00:19:37 the new year. That's something that they've had on their goal list for a while. And so I'm curious if you were to share one tip or takeaway, just to create great engagement with the show or to really create that connection with the audience, what is something that you'd share with those people looking to start a show? I would start a video first pod. I would record, I would record an audio and video for every episode, whether you use it or not right away, I would start there because I think you can use the video for social, as we talked about a little earlier, right? You can, you can package it for social promotion. I think YouTube is a great platform for discovery and they now have their podcast features. So first thing, if you're going to do

Starting point is 00:20:20 it, I really would invest in audio and video. And then for getting started, I think it's like, what are your interests and where do you have expertise? What can you talk to with authority? Or what are you curious about where you can go learn, bring people on, ask them thoughtful questions? I think there's a lot of folks that start and they don't necessarily have a concept in mind. They're like, oh, I'll do a talk show about whatever.

Starting point is 00:20:44 But have a concept in mind. They're like, oh, I'll do a talk show about whatever. But have a concept, give yourself an angle where it's like, I'm going to do a talk show about this, but I'm always going to cover this specific element of that topic. So using My First Million as an example, our biggest show, they want to bring people on who started a business and made a million dollars. That's kind of the concept, right? But then each episode has a different angle to it where it's, they grew this business through venture funding, or they grew this business through bootstrapping, or they grew this business through an acquisition. Like there's just different angles in which they can cover those stories. And I think that's important for folks is like know the topic, know the format,

Starting point is 00:21:28 but also just like what's the unique angle you're gonna take. And also, I guess best bit of advice, just do it. I think most people just say like, oh, I bought the mic and I have the camera, but I don't have the time or I'm not gonna do it. I don't think I'm gonna be very good. You're not gonna know until you ship it.

Starting point is 00:21:49 So I'd encourage folks to just put out an episode or two and see how it goes. Yeah. I think sharing your unique voices is so important. I mean, if you think about some of the shows that you guys have, Amy Porterfield, Jenna Kutcher, Donald Miller, JJ Peterson, they all have these different ways that they're presenting their content. And so honing into your point, into your unique style, your story, things like that. I think, uh, thinking about what makes human connection, uh, just out in the real world and pertaining that to podcasting is I think super powerful. So I love that you said that I like that. So it's so true. It's just like, like bring yourself there, like have a personality, share what's going on in your life. Amy and Jenna on gold digger online. That's the

Starting point is 00:22:30 best part of the show, right? You're learning about how they built their business, their lives, their relationships. I actually talked to Amy at inbound this year, and we were talking about like moving into video. And she was like, I don't know about this. And her team was pushing her to do more video that was personal. So not just like the podcast episode or the next course. And she posted something about liking her husband's beard. And it was like a video. And she said it was the highest performing video

Starting point is 00:23:01 she had posted all year. And we just started talking about that where it's like, yeah, like there is the business aspect of it. But when it comes to social, when it comes to podcasting, even there's such a deep relationship, people follow you, they listen to you for long periods of time. Tell them about yourself. What are your interests outside of business? What are your interests that that other folks can relate to, right? Like talk about movies and what you're drinking at happy hour and what music you like to listen to.

Starting point is 00:23:30 Because I think that's where people are going to connect with you more than our YouTube strategy framework. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, it's a balance for sure. Balancing all those different elements, but relationship is huge on those platforms. And I think another area that relationship is really important can be email too. You know, a lot of these creators are creating these very personal one-to-one emails that you

Starting point is 00:23:55 feel like you're receiving something direct from that person. And so I want to kind of shift into that conversation here for a minute. Email, I know for me personally, is one of my favorite topics ever. It's such a powerful platform, even to this day. So I want to hear from you about your team and what they're creating. And what does your newsletter content look like right now? And how are you consistently delivering valuable content to your subscribers? Yeah, I think the newsletter is so important. I mean, there's definitely I

Starting point is 00:24:25 talked about those trends of more people watching video. But we've been talking about moving away from email for a while. But substack would have something to say about that, right? Like there's a lot of people that subscribe to newsletters. And I think it still is a very personal medium, I'm getting it to my inbox, I want to hear from you. I like reading what you have to say. And so newsletters are a huge piece of what we're doing. And the hustle is our biggest newsletter. I think, you know, that daily business and tech newsletter has been extremely successful. And the content in there, I think what makes it great is it's a mix of really three things. There's original storytelling. So our,

Starting point is 00:25:05 you know, our writers are going out finding unique stories to tell. There's curation. So we actually do a lot of work where we're like, hey, what would our readers find interesting that they may not find on their own, but we're going to go find it for them and bring them into the newsletter. Then the third is, I think there's a unique voice. I think if you read The Hustle, it's funny. We're always trying to find those quirky things on the internet that you may not have found yourself. And so I do think that's how we approach our editorial strategy is what value can we bring from original content? What value can we bring from curation? And then also what's our unique voice?

Starting point is 00:25:41 So The Hustle is really our big play for entrepreneurs and like larger reach. Our newsletter team's been working on some more like niche audience focused newsletters, which are really cool. This year we launched the lead, which is our marketing newsletter. So weekly marketing newsletter, but it's not just how to content. It's our perspective on marketing strategy and how people should, should focus going forward. We find some really cool, unique plays that brands have done. And we'll tell that story and package it for folks. We pull in some of our podcast episodes. So I mentioned that curation piece, right? It's not

Starting point is 00:26:15 always something new. So the lead and the pipeline for sales. So these are two newsletters where we're like, okay, we want to reach marketers and salespeople on a weekly basis. And we want to just consistently provide them with their news and inspiration through the stories that we find. So from at the end of the day, our newsletters, I guess none of them sell our product, which I think is a little unique, right? Like our job is to provide value before we ever introduce them to our software. That's so great. And I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn and it seems like every other day somebody is starting a new newsletter. Do you have any advice around how to stand out amongst that noise? Like what entices people to sign up for you? And how do you communicate why you versus somebody else? Yeah, I think it kind of depends. There's folks that can start newsletters that are more brands, right? Where it's like the TLDR newsletter is one that did really well in the tech space.

Starting point is 00:27:19 Now they're expanding into other verticals. Their marketing newsletter is great because it's literally just headlines of the day. You kind of just scan it and you know, this is what I'm getting. I'm not expecting anything more than headlines of the day. Or you can build a newsletter where you're like, this is going to be really personality driven. It's going to be more of an opinion piece, a column, something I'm going to write every week. So I think you have to decide like, what value is my newsletter going to provide? And then from there, you have to figure out what topics do I want to talk about? And what's that editorial angle again, and I don't think you'll ever nail it on the first try. I think you have to put something out there, see how folks respond, and then try new topics. The one thing I will say is like, I even have this personally, where

Starting point is 00:28:06 there's things that you think about, that everyone else is thinking about, but they haven't organized their thoughts in a way where it's like, yes, I always knew that. And that was like, really insightful. That was really helpful. So I think folks tend to be scared to like, put something down on paper, like I've been thinking about this this and they're like, everybody already knows that. That's not always the case. Like put it down, help people understand. And I think by writing, you're going to actually be a better thinker and organize your ideas and people will respect you for that.

Starting point is 00:28:38 And they'll start to follow you. Biggest piece of advice that you like you asked about, don't, don't write kind of like the technical style newsletter, in my opinion, I think you got to write in first person. I think it's gotta be conversational. And I think you just have to have people connect to you that way. Um, not for all of them, but I do think that's one way to get, get a lot of readers right away.

Starting point is 00:29:04 Yeah. Excellent advice. I think the key piece is just building relationship with your consumer. And if you're doing that over a newsletter, you're going to talk like you talk to your friends, you know, you're going to try to bring them in and share what you have going on just in a conversational way. So I love that. Okay, this is kind of a loaded question. I don't think that it was in the original document that we sent over, but I'm curious to hear your thoughts because you're in marketing every day. Any predictions for 2024?

Starting point is 00:29:30 I don't know where you want to start with that. Maybe platform predictions or just general content strategy predictions that you have of where we're going to see marketers move in 2024? Yeah, good question. So I think most folks would tell you that AI is going to be extremely disruptive and I don't think they're wrong and I'm actually not going to

Starting point is 00:29:52 predict that. Right. So I think Google is going to change their search experience. I think more people are moving to open AI for information than GPT. However, I do think people who work in marketing and tech tend to be really early adopters. And so I think we're all excited about it. We're planning for it. We're trying to bring change to our content strategies. But I think the people who buy your products, the people who aren't necessarily in marketing and tech every day, they're not necessarily going to adopt the tools right away. And so my prediction is it'll be a little slower. And so I think you should really double down on personality driven content. And that'll prepare you for the future because we'll move away from more of this technical link based content. But I do think it'll be a slower adoption. And I think if folks start to invest in who are the faces of my brand, what value are those people bringing to my audience,

Starting point is 00:30:52 and you build your content around the people, I do think that offers value right away. And I think it'll protect you in the long term. Awesome. Thank you for that, Kyle. Yeah, that's actually fantastic advice about the fact that just because we're adopting something doesn't necessarily mean that the consumers are so great reminder there. Yeah. I always like earlier, we talked about the structures, right? You have to go audience first. If you're a marketer starting in your career, if you're a CMO, who am I trying to reach? And then how do they consume my content? Right. And then it's like, make something for them. And I think a lot of our conversation today is just how do we make

Starting point is 00:31:32 content that is valuable and how do we make sure that it attracts people? And the way you attract people is through your personality and your original ideas. And I think brands have to realize like audiences don't necessarily follow institutional brands anymore, unless it's the New York times. I think they're more interested in following people. That's why they're going to YouTube and Tik TOK. They want to know, okay, who's this expert? Who's done it before? Show me, show me. Cause I want to do it too. Yeah, absolutely. Well, that reminded me too of a question I'd love to ask you about is identifying almost like a spokesperson or some sort of face that you can put in your content. So I'm curious

Starting point is 00:32:11 your thoughts on that. Cause I know a lot of brands are trying to navigate that and figure out, you know, do we identify someone to, to put on camera and to post about on social and things like that to make that one-to-one connection? What's your opinion on that? It's definitely tough. It's tough to figure out. I think the easy answer that most brands do right now is influencer marketing. I'm just gonna go partner with someone,

Starting point is 00:32:36 I'm gonna pay them and they're gonna promote my product. And that's one way to do it. You're gonna get reach, you'll probably get some sales. But if you're building for the long-term, I think you do want to build media products that people will follow and engage with. And I think you can build those around your people. And a lot of times that's folks that have probably been at the company for a while or

Starting point is 00:32:57 folks who are eager and clearly are going to stay and help build the rocket ship. But what we've thought about is like, okay, we can do creator partnerships, as I mentioned, where we find people who align to our values, they align to our audience, they share a lot of incredible content that we're excited about. Let's partner with them and do that relationship. On our in-house stuff, we'll actually find folks who are experts and we'll build around them. So our CMO hosts one of our podcasts. He is brilliant. He's been at the company a long time. He understands marketing strategy better than anyone. Was he a podcaster right away? No, but we said to him, we want to bring your ideas to the audience and we're going to have you work

Starting point is 00:33:44 with a producer and they're going to build a great show around you. And that show's been incredible. It's been growing significantly. And we're starting to do that on all of our channels. We have folks who are internal experts on our blogs. So they're writers on the marketing blog. They've been writing some really cool stories. We were like, these will do really well on YouTube.

Starting point is 00:34:04 Do you want to go on camera? And then they say, no, right? They're a little scared. And then you're like, but you'll be really good. We promise. And they're like, okay. And you put a producer on it, you get good lighting, get good audio, record it, edit it and get it up there.

Starting point is 00:34:17 And it's a great piece of content on your YouTube channel. So that's my advice for brands is look around. There are experts who work for you trying to figure out how can I stand them up? How can I build a presence around them? And that'll start to attract an audience. One of the folks at HubSpot who has the biggest audience is Kyle Jepson. He's a HubSpot Academy professor who posts fun tips and tricks on LinkedIn every week. He has a huge audience.

Starting point is 00:34:46 You should see his LinkedIn posts, the comments, the light. And all he's doing is he's at home recording, showing people how to use HubSpot. So I do think a lot of brands are probably thinking, I have to build this high-end brand polished media property. And I don't think that's always the case. So good. Love that.

Starting point is 00:35:08 Thank you so much for sharing that. Well, Kyle, this has been so awesome and just full of amazing insights that I know we're very excited to take action on here at Marketing Happy Hour. But as we close out, we have to ask one of our favorite questions, going back to

Starting point is 00:35:25 the career side of things. So what do you know now that you wish you knew earlier on in your career? I didn't know anything early in my career. And I thought I did. That's honestly, honestly, that was one of the things it's this self, it's the self-awareness piece. You're really eager. You're well-read. You read the newsletters. You listen to the pods. You see other brands. You're like, I can do that. And you want to move up as fast as you can. And I think people should, right? I think they should be eager and build new things and try new things. But I do think as you move up in your career, you get exposed to so much more you didn't even know existed. And so having that self-awareness of like, I'm really lucky to

Starting point is 00:36:12 have the opportunity I have right now. I'm going to raise my hand to keep learning new things and just be open-minded. And that self-awareness will help you. And like, this is what I know, and this is what I don't know. And that's okay. And I'm going to raise my hand and I'm going to take new projects and I'm going to take new jobs and I'm going to learn as much as I can so that when I want to be the director, the VP, the CMO, I have enough experience and I have a big enough network to like help me be successful. So I think that's probably my advice. Like early on, I was like, I can do this. I can run the website and the social channels and the paid channels. Right. And it's like, I probably can't. I'm going to need some help on this. And there's a lot I still need to learn. So that's my advice for folks. Just to learn is so huge. I know I worked with some people in the past who would say, you know, that's not my job. You know, that's not what I need to handle. And I have so much other stuff going on that I need to focus on. I don't need to do this, but I think it just having a willing heart and being able to say, okay, I'm, I'm, I want to learn

Starting point is 00:37:20 this. I want to be able to bring value here so that you can carry that with you throughout the rest of your career, I think is so, so, so important. Yeah. So why not take the project? It may take a couple hours, but like now I'm going to know how to build an email. Now I'm going to know how to write a great subject line. Now I'm going to know how to build a LinkedIn carousel. There are things you see, but you never get asked to do. Why not say, Hey, I can chip in, I can help out. And like sometimes your boss or the brand may not use the work, but that's okay. Like you get to use it, like you get more at bats.

Starting point is 00:37:52 You just try new things. And you can, I think if you, to your point, Erica, if you like sit back and you're like, oh, that's not really my job. It's like, well, you're never going to learn it if you don't do it. Right. And you're never going to move forward if you don't continue learning. I think that's something that we lose when we leave college is we're like, okay, the learning is done. I know how to do what I know how to do. And this is my new role. And this is what I'm going to do and nothing more. And I'm not going to learn anymore, but to be

Starting point is 00:38:18 really successful and to keep, you know, growing in your career, that's what you really have to buckle up and do. I love that. For sure. I had this journalism professor who had an assignment every Friday to go read a news story and then write a summary on our WordPress site and submit it to him. And this was like the easiest assignment in the world. Right. But I never wanted to do it. I was like, this is ridiculous. I'm going to read the news, then write a summary about the news and submit it.

Starting point is 00:38:44 I did it 30 minutes before class. I published it. I got the complete, right? That wasn't what he was teaching us. He was teaching us. You have to read the news to learn what's going on and then distill that information. Right. And I'm like naive in college. I'm like, this is an annoying assignment. I use that all the time. When I talk about my teams, I'm like, be on Twitter, be on LinkedIn, follow things, learn things, try things, and then make sure you can communicate that in your day-to-day job. So you're exactly right, Erica. You just have to be curious and keep learning. I love that so much. And I feel like we could talk to you all day and just more actionable tips, more advice, career, things like that. But we do have to close at some point. So we just want to

Starting point is 00:39:29 hear where everyone can find you follow along with what you're up to, what the HubSpot team is up to. So where can we see you online? Let's see, I would go I would go to LinkedIn, I tend to to post a little more there. So feel free to follow or reach out and connect on LinkedIn. I tend to, um, to post a little more there. Um, so feel free to, to follow or reach out and connect on LinkedIn. Um, and if you haven't, uh, subscribed to any of the, uh, channels or media products I talked to talked about today, please do go to the hustle.co subscribe to the hustle. I think you'll really enjoy it. Amazing. We'll have everything in the show notes for people to, uh,. And just thank you again for joining us. This has been very valuable conversation. Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Starting point is 00:40:15 That's it for this week's episode. Thanks so much again for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember to subscribe, rate, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. For more from Marketing Happy Hour, head on over to our website, marketinghappyhr.com, or follow us on Instagram at marketinghappyhr. We'll see you next week. We are so excited to share that our first ever free marketing happy hour digital resource is now available. Download the dream career game plan today at marketinghappyhr.com forward slash freebie. That's marketinghappyhr.com forward slash freebie. This five-step workbook will guide you through defining your goals, building your network, diversifying your skills, influencing where you're at, and investing in your growth. Cassie and I created this resource with marketing careers in mind,

Starting point is 00:41:15 but the framework can be applied to any industry. Our hope is that this workbook will help you truly elevate your career, whether you're in the market for a new position or just looking to make your mark in your current organization. No matter where this resource finds you, we are cheering you on every step of the way. So go check it out at marketinghappyhr.com forward slash freebie to download and make your career dreams come true.

Marketing Happy Hour - Level Up Your Content Strategy in 2024 | Kyle Denhoff of HubSpot

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